Driving innovative automotive packaging with new plant in Poland

Thursday 14th September 2017 saw the official opening of a new Specialty Packaging Plant in Kielce, Poland. The 5,000 sqm facility includes a production and office area and was built in just seven months. The associated overall outlays amounted to approx. PLN 10 m (€2.3m). The investment will expand production capacity for DS Smith and create additional jobs in the region.

The plant is home to a Specialty Packaging Department, which has catered to the needs of customers in assorted industrial markets, including automotive, white goods and logistics, for the past 12 years. Its offer encompasses a wide array of bespoke packaging solutions for products as diverse as car engines, aircraft components, and bulk chemicals. Innovative heavy duty packaging enables our customers to protect their products in transport and storage and to manage associated risks in the supply cycle.

“The new facility specialises mostly in the production of sophisticated corrugated cardboard packaging for the automotive industry. The opening of the new plant will enable us to boost production, until recently restrained by the lack of necessary area. The previous facility had been in use since 1971 and was just over half the size of the new facility.”

— Krzysztof Sadowski, Managing Director of DS Smith Poland & Baltics

The new plant constitutes the first entirely new investment since the establishment of the Kielce location 46 years ago and was erected on the site of a former structure. The previously operating facility was dismantled and some 4,500 tonnes of the recovered concrete elements were thoroughly ground and reused as an input for the neighbouring escarpment and access roads. Some 400 m3 of concrete and 23 tonnes of steel were used for the foundation alone, while the structure above contains over 130 precast concrete elements.

Special effort has been made to ensure that the plant is environmentally friendly and that it complies with most stringent thermal efficiency standards. A special variety of glass windows installed in the office area allows for a 70% reduction of heat loss, while the roof is insulated with 130 tonnes of mineral wool and 1,900 sqm of thermodynamic panels.